And he hid this feature in the middle of the book. For a habit expert like me, it’s the biggest takeaway. “I would train you in celebrations before teaching you about the Fogg Behavior Model, or the power of simplicity, or Anchors, or recipes for Tiny Habits.”īJ Fogg knows it’s important. What is more, the author is clearly aware of the importance of featuring this tip: Why did I put it as a con? Because it’s articulated in the book only halfway into it!! I never truly implemented this element into my habit development or my coaching. I mean, when I did the Tiny Habits course a few years ago, I read about celebration and I discounted it. Apart from very interesting stories about the author and his clients and students, there was nothing new in the book for me. I’ve been writing about his concepts for several years. I went through his free course with success. I’ve already studied the concept of tiny habits. I bought Tiny Habits to repay BJ Fogg for his awesome job. This is my biggest takeaway from the whole book. The same with fighting timeless concepts that have been proven to work in practice countless times. I simply say belittling others is not his style and it doesn’t fit this awesome book. You may think after this con that the author is some kind of self-righteous monster.

Then you can add some qualifiers: that it doesn’t work alone or that if your emotions are working against you it’s very hard to create a habit despite repetitions.īut in general, repetitions work, hence the author’s own advice to rehearse your habits.ĭon’t get me wrong. I’ve coached over 100 people in habit formation, and I did it according to BJ Fogg’s model. Those “popular bloggers” don’t just spill their words on the internet. Second, in my ears “groundbreaking research” equals inerrancy and people who haven’t done such research are inferior. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater and pretending it’s a good thing to commit.įirst, this paragraph was totally unnecessary. They have not done groundbreaking research.” Just know this: They are recycling old ideas. “Some of today’s popular habit bloggers still talk about repetition or frequency as the key. It was in the fragment about repetitions: I noticed it only once in the book, but it left a foul taste.

BJ Fogg’s ideas are truly brilliant, but stating some utterances like they are dogma tickles me in a bad way. I don’t think any author is free of this. This is the main focus of this chapter, and deriding repetitions, tracking, and streaks was a huge mistake and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I found an ideal sentence describing what the author meant, the one which I agree 101% with: If repetitions don’t build a habit, why rehearse? You should just “feel good” about the idea of having a habit and it will magically form. In fact, Fogg contradicts himself, teaching his readers in the next chapter to rehearse their tiny habits. Emotions alone aren’t a silver bullet either. Repetitions alone aren’t a silver bullet. But tens of millions of people have felt very excited about changing their habits, didn’t force themselves, weren’t consistent, and ended up without a habit in the exact same way. Millions of people have forced themselves to follow some diet for a month or a quarter-year, and then they abandoned it and never came back. And he does it in an ugly style, which is another con. “For too long people have believed the old myth that repetition creates habits.”īJ Fogg champions the idea that your attitude is more important than consistency. In the very same chapter there is a sentence: One of the chapters is titled “Emotions Build Habits.” The main con of the book is a piece of absolute, utter hogwash that simply doesn’t fit this awesome book. It doesn’t change the fact that there are some cons, and as usual, I’ll start with them. One of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read (I’ve lost count, probably over 1,000 books).

Tiny habits review